


A Game of Conquest

by Iron



Category: Transformers (IDW 2019), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No War AU, Betrayal and forgiveness, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:20:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iron/pseuds/Iron
Summary: Deathsaurus meets the sanitation mech in charge of keeping his office clean just as his career is grinding to a halt.When he realizes that the mech resembles the famous Bumblebee, he doesn't hesitate in using him to pull himself out of the slump he's fallen into.He doesn't expect to regret it so much.
Relationships: Deathsaurus/Cliffjumper
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33
Collections: Secret Solenoid '20-'21





	A Game of Conquest

Deathsaurus often wonders why he isn’t moving up in the ranks; he’s accomplished more, and accomplishes more faster, than most of his cohort. He’s intelligent, driven, well-formed. He’s known throughout Cybertron as an excellent junior ambassador. 

And yet that all he is. A junior ambassador. 

He paces his office in short, angry strides, claws digging furrows into the imported stone of his pre-war floor. His mind is spinning in circles, but he can’t pick out a single actual thought.

There is no reason for his stagnation. It is not for lack of ambition, lack of talent, lack of throwing himself bodily at every damn opportunity that’s presented itself to him -! 

And yet. He’s still only a junior ambassador. 

Wings shivering with tension, he’s about to make _another_ round of his office when someone knocks on his door. He’s about to roar at them - everyone knows not to bother him! - when he realizes that, no, this mech may well not. He’s never in his office at this time of day. Most afternoons he’s either caught up in someone else’s office or - more often - off-planet entirely. 

Knowing that doesn’t stop him from snapping at the mech in the doorway, fangs bared, for the half-second before he remembers that he is supposed to be _civilized_ , and his teeth clack together with a sound sharp enough to make his audials ring. “What,” he manages, each word bitten off and blunt, “do you want?” 

The red minibot in the doorway stares. His hands are clenched tightly around the handles of his cart, stacked high with cleaning supplies. There’s a dust rag thrown over his shoulder. _Cleanermech_. And not a bad one. He’s managed to keep the floor polished better than the one before him had. Deathsaurus had noticed the difference. 

“… I can be back later.” 

Deathsaurus takes a steadying invent. His reputation needs no more assistance than his form already grants it. “No. No, come in. It’s not as if my office does not require it.” He straightens up and swallows whatever anger’s left in his chest. 

“I really can. I promise.” 

Deathsaurus allows his main optics to shutter. Of course, this gormless, pathetic little mini is terrified of him. Pathetic little - “It’s fine. I’m just leaving.” 

The mini scuttles inside, heavy peds hitting the ground with solid thunks. “Sorry. Don’t want to run you out or anything, I’m just not used to anyone, you know, being there when I clean. I think it makes mechs feel awkward -“ 

“It’s fine.” He studies the mech with his lower auxiliary optics. The little mech stands tall, shuffling in with his cart and his helm held high. Unafraid, unlike what Deathsaurus had assumed. Simply… Surprised, then. “Clean.” 

The sanitation mech shuffles around Deathsaurus, apparently paying him no mind after granting him permission. Deathsaurus watches him, for a while. He’s efficient. And he makes sure not to leave any evidence of him having been there behind. It makes the instincts inherent in his form perk up. _Consideration_. Such a rare thing in common alts. 

He watches until the mech is finished with all but the floor. Then he leaves. 

— 

There seems to be a dearth of assignments to keep his time. Deathsaurus is sure that there is someone behind it, now. It only takes him a week to figure it out. 

— 

The mech comes at the same time every day, roughly. Most of the time his work is simple: dusting, polishing what few things there are in the office to polish, wash the windows facing the sun. Most of his time is spent on repairing the scuffs and scratches that Deathsaurus leaves behind with every careless motion of his frame. Once, Deathsaurus watches him spend an hour filling in the chips on the edge of the heirloom desk he’d inherited with the office until it was straight and smooth and perfectly unmarked. 

“Why make it perfect?” 

The little mech sits back on his heels and studies the desk. “Because things deserved to be fixed.”

“It’s a desk.” 

“Even average things deserve to be fixed. Even if you found this exact same desk, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t have been where this desk has been, seen the mechs this desk has seen. It would be the same in every way… but it wouldn’t be this desk. So it deserves to be fixed.” 

“Is that a philosophy of yours?” 

The mech takes a file to the corner of the desk, studying the angle of the stone. “I believe in things. Most people don’t see enough of what I do to ask why I do it.” 

“I suppose not.” 

He notices other things that have been repaired. The desk. The floor. The seal on the windows is done at least once. He rips open the arm of his chair, stuffing spilling out, during a call with the head of the ambassadorial corps. Controlling his own limbs is harder when he knows it’s someone too important for him to intimidate pulling his strings. It’s fixed with small, almost invisible stitches one day. 

He finds himself disappointed to have missed the little mech’s visit. 

He’s careful to keep his claws tucked against his palms the next week. The mech looks surprised when he sees it. “I thought we could play a game of Conquest with the time I’ve saved you.” 

“Do you often play board games with the janitors?” 

“Just you.” 

“… I guess you have left me a break in my schedule.” 

— 

He finds the identity of the mech who’s decided to bring his career to a halt after Cliffjumper leaves that afternoon. 

Optimus Prime, it seems, has a grudge 

—

It takes him two months to find his way in. Cliffjumper never misses a day. His skill in Conquest grows in leaps and bounds. He never beats Deathsaurus. 

— 

Deathsaurus is skimming through one of the higher-end consignment boutiques - Cliffjumper was hoping for a set of his own, and having one that he could refurbish would be best. Heirloom, he calls it. Deathsaurus could appreciate the sentiment, having something to give away when you passed. His own mentor had left him his office and his form, after all. 

He’s combing through shelves stuffed with games when an old vidscreen catching his attention. “ _\- Optimus Prime’s gala is going to be closed to most of the public, but it’s a rare chance to see the mech in person -_ ” 

Ah. 

A chance. He just needs an _in_. 

Watching the vidscreen, studying the mechs standing oh so close to the leader who inexplicitly hates him, he thinks he might have an idea of what that in may be. 

—

Deathsaurys studies the mech in front of him. He’s never been much attracted to minibus, preferring frametypes and mechs who could lay him out like so much fragile driftwood, but he supposes there’s nothing wrong with the standard minibot frame. There’s a pleasing roundness to his thighs and shoulders, and he’s at a height where, leaning over him like this, Deathsaurus could deign to nibble on his rather enticing horns. 

Still, what he feels for the mech is less attractive than it is a fascination with his form. Few mechs as small as him would feel comfortable with a predator such as Deathsaurus near. He was rarely trusted so easily as this Cliffjumper seems to trust him. 

And he looks like Bumblebee. 

“A date?” 

“A plus one. Think of it as a chance to gorge on fancy fuels and make fun of all the idiots we let run this planet.” 

“… I guess I wouldn’t mind a party. I gotta polish fancy for it?” 

Deathsaurus scoffs. “Don’t bother putting on airs for those idiots.” The honest in it makes something in his chest twist. Perhaps some long-ignored remnant of his conscious. He resents it already. “They’re not worth the effort.” 

The little bug nods, expression too-serious. Dez remembers him saying that he’d never gotten a chance to do anything fancy. Didn’t even have a chance on his onlining sol, truncated and empty as it was. “I’ll meet you here for it?” 

“I’ll pick you up.” 

Another sharp little nod, the minibot standing straighter. “So… since you asked, another game?” 

“I suppose I have time to beat you once more.” 

— 

Those blue optics, wide and round and usually alight with curiosity, are dark as they turn on Deathsaurus. “… you don’t have an invite to this party. You don’t, but _Bumblebee_ does. You used me to get into a party.” 

Deathsaurus opens his mouth. Closes it. His tail lashes against the ground. He doesn’t like being challenged like this. If he were alone with Cliffjumper, he could grab him, could make him understand that Dez hadn’t done this to hurt him. He was just a means to an end. 

Cliffjumper draws back when Dez reaches for him. 

If Cliffjumper were a normal mech, he’d throw a fit, he’d call security and have Dez thrown out of the building and ridiculed. 

If Dez were feeling as he normally did, he wouldn’t give two frags about the hurt look in Cliffjumper’s optics. His tank would be dropping somewhere around his knees, heavy with something he couldn’t name, didn’t know. 

“Enjoy the party.” Cliffjumper bites out, and he disappears into the crowd before Dez can reach out and grab him. 

Dez tries to follow, but his frame is bulky and overlarge in ways that Cliff’s isn’t, and he quickly loses the mini in the crowd. Even slipping outside and watching mechs leave doesn’t reveal Cliff’s location to him. _He must have used the service tunnels to leave without anyone noticing._. This means Dez wouldn’t be finding him tonight. 

He waits until the caterers have left before admitting to himself that the minibot had gotten away. 

— 

There’s a new mech cleaning his offices. One who doesn’t care to repair things. The floor’s mirror shine is gone. 

He finds himself pacing his office, upset beyond words. He’s never much-appreciated change, and it’s worse when it’s change he’s had no voice in. Cliffjumper should be there, making comments about how the next time he has to buff out the tiling he’s going to take his grinder to Deathsaurus’ claws, or asking about some technique he’d read about for their net game of Conquest. 

The afternoons are quiet. He finds himself waiting, audials pricked up for any hint of Cliffjumper’s heavy pedsteps, but they never come. The cheerful trike that replaced him isn’t the worst damn janitor he’s ever had, but he’s - 

Well. He’s not Cliffjumper. And that’s an issue. 

— 

He corners the little trike when he’s finished - no reason to let the mech leave his office dirty - crowding him into a corner and looming over him. 

There is no fear in the mech's optics as he turns his chin up. “So. You’re the mech Cliffjumper forced me to trade shifts for. Do you know he’s getting fed fresh candied crystals in the Primal Tower?” 

“He’s. What.” 

“He’s working in _Prime’s_ Tower right now.” The stubborn tilt of his mouth is infuriating. “And he’s fragging relieved.” 

“I-“ 

“Am an aft.” He bares blunted delta at Deathsaurus, fierce as any predator form. “Who used him for his _brother_.” 

“… his brother.” 

“Bumblebee, sparked hours before Cliffjumper. The mech who left him with an empty square to greet him. And you used Cliffjumper as his replacement.” 

Deathsaurus rarely finds himself without words. He’s been a trained ambassador for vorns, and before that he was a leader on the field of war. Words have been his weapon almost as much as his claws and fangs, and he’d relied on them as heavily. 

And now he finds his mouth filled with too many to work out, an ugly, riotous mess enough to fill out a crowd. The mech slips away when he’s still trying to find the words, out the door with a snarl of an engine too strong for his frame. 

Deathsaurus is left with the lingering smell of his frame, disturbed by how little he smells like Cliffjumper. 

— 

It seems Cliffjumper is better at avoiding mechs he doesn’t want to talk to than Deathsaurus had expected - or, anyways, better at avoiding _him_ than he’d expected, deftly staying out of Deathsaurus’s reach no matter how well the mech stalks him through the city. 

It’s a testament to Deathsaurus’s own determination that he doesn’t give up. He _wants_ the stupid little mini, wants to hold him down and tell him that he wants him, wants to - to apologize, as much as it galls him. 

But Cliffjumper is clever, and he’s long since memorized Deathsaurus’s schedule. The mech has been brought low enough to sit discontentedly outside of Prime’s office, ignoring the look Optimus shoots him every time he has to step around the dragon on his way to a meeting. He’s clearly been debriefed by the other cleaning mechs who work in the building because he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t make Deathsaurus leave, either, which is … some sort of endorsement for his actions. Maybe a sign that the others in Cliffjumper’s department approve of him? 

Frag, he’s never cared if mechs _approve_ of him before. 

_What is that mech doing to me?_. 

He rests his chin on top of his paws, optics dim. He’s been sitting outside the Prime’s office for nearly a week, outside of meetings even he couldn’t avoid, and he’s exhausted by it. He’s taken to flicking Conquest pieces under the mech’s door and listening to his frustrated groans every time the mech steps on one.

Deathsaurus is starting to believe that Cliffjumper is never going to allow him to see the mini again when the wheels of a cleaning cart bump hard against his flank. He whips his helm around to snarl at the _idiot_ who thought he could touch him and comes face to face with his little red mini. 

Cliffjumper is scowling. “Haven’t given up yet, have you?” 

Deathsaurus stares, slack-jawed. 

A whole damn week of waiting to catch the mech, and he showed up on his own. 

Didn’t even have the fragging gall to pretend like he was surprised to see Deathsaurus there. This meeting is entirely under Cliffjumper’s control, from the time, to the day, to the way he approached the lounging dragon. 

And it’s something that Deathsaurus had accepted when he staked out the same spot for a week. Of course, Cliffjumper would choose how they met again; he’d been too neatly outmaneuvered for this to end in any other way. 

“I… made a grave miscalculation in my treatment of you, Cliffjumper.” 

“A miscalculation.” 

“I was an aft.” 

Cliffjumper watches him, those optics - dark, and depthless, and so different from his spark brother’s - unmoved by the confession. 

Deathsaurus squirms. “I should have told you what I was doing before I brought you to the party. I never should have tried to use you to get in at all.” 

“Is that all you’re sorry for? The fragging party?” 

“I didn’t befriend you to _use_ you. I … I saw a way in which you could be used after we had already become friends. And I do not regret reaching out to you. I - you are very - there was always more to you than simply how you could be used, Cliffjumper.” 

“But you chose to throw whatever you saw in me away _to_ use me.” 

Deathsaurus gnashes his fangs. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m a fragging idiot?!” 

“At least once more.” Amusement is finally coloring his tone. “Though I think the fact that you’ve definitely sunk your career prospects for irritating the Prime for a week straight says more than you calling yourself an aft ever could.” 

“… is this forgiveness?” 

Cliffjumper gently nudges the cart against Deathsaurus’s flank. “It’s a start. It’s me telling you that I might forgive you if you keep working on it.” 

“And the next step would be -“ 

“Getting out of my way so I can do my job. And the step after _that_ is going to be lunch. Today. Somewhere _nice_.” 

Somewhere nice. 

He can do that. 


End file.
